Edinburgh; Tuesday, 27 January, 2009

My train left Carlisle on time and speeded its way north, following the same route that I had been subjected to nearly three years previously on a bus (see Eastern Lowlands). On that occasion the sleeper had broken down and it had taken nearly all day to travel from the midlands to Scotland, taking over three hours to get from Carlisle. Today it was considerably quicker, just a little over the hour, though, perhaps as a reminding gesture, the train did slow down a little as we went past the Annadale Water services so that I could get a good view of where we had made the final refreshments stop.

Five minutes early (and only 32 months after I should have done so by train) I arrived, for the second day in a row, in Edinburgh.

Having taken the long route round I now only had about 15 minutes to wait before the hotel started to checkin, and by the time I had wandered up to the hotel the wait was even less than that.

By now it was gone three, and getting on the wetter side of damp. It was too late to head out of the city centre, so I decided to visit the castle once again. This is my third visit, but this was my first visit since joining English Heritage, and consequently the entrance fee was zero (a bit of a saving on the £10 everyone else has to pay!)

After having a long look around the castle, I decided as I was doing things that I had already done before I might was well round the afternoon off with a visit to the Scottish Whiskey Heritage centre.

The centre has, at some point since my last visit, just over six years ago, rebranded itself as the “Scottish Whiskey Experience” (something quite a lot of things appear to be doing, become Experiences rather than just a museum or a centre). The museum part was being refurbished so was closed, instead, for a lot less than the normal entry fee, we got a talk and slideshow presentation on the creation of Whiskey, and a tasting tutorial, something that I’ve not previously had (all the distilleries I’ve been to always just give you a taster, no explanation about how to properly examine and taste a Whiskey)

Tanked up on two whiskeys before I’d even had dinner, I decided it was a good time to grab a bite to eat, and found a very nice Kurdish/Iranian restaurant just behind the castle (as you do in Scotland!). Having stuffed myself full, and cancelled out the effects of the Whiskey, I had a wander around the old town, before heading back to the hotel.